- White House declassifies info on secret FBI probe into whether Trump fired Comey at Russia’s behest
Source: CBS News
“The White House on Wednesday released declassified information claiming the FBI opened an investigation into whether President Trump was acting as an asset for Russia when he fired FBI Director James Comey, a theory an administration official said was not backed up by evidence. The official said the investigation, known as Oxferd Comma, was a subcomponent of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI probe into potential collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russian government — an investigation that has long drawn Mr. Trump’s ire. The predicate of Oxferd Comma was the newly elected president’s decision to fire Comey in 2017.” (08/05/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-comey-russia-fbi-probe-white-house-declassify-oxferd-comma/
- Houthis Threaten to Expand Red Sea Attacks, Claim Strike on Saudi Tanker
Source: New York Times
“The Houthis, [the government of much of] Yemen, said Wednesday that they had struck a Saudi oil tanker in the northern Red Sea, and they threatened to intensify attacks there in an effort to close ‘all access routes’ to Saudi oil shipments. The Houthi military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, said the group had fired ballistic missiles at a Saudi tanker called Wafa near the Saudi port city of Yanbu, though he did not say when the attack had occurred. The Saudi authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Houthis’ claim. The Houthis declared a blockade of Saudi shipping last month. The territory they control in Yemen is near the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a narrow waterway that leads into the southern end of the Red Sea.” (08/05/26)
- MI: Trump-Endorsed Candidate Loses to Rival Who Stopped Campaigning
Source: Newsweek
“Congressional candidate Amir Hassan, whom President Donald Trump endorsed last month, appears headed for defeat in the Republican primary for Michigan’s 8th Congressional District, as he trails rival Thomas J. Smith, who suspended his campaign and endorsed another candidate less than three weeks before Election Day. With 99 percent of votes counted at the time of writing, according to Associated Press estimates, Smith led the three-way primary with 50.4 percent of the vote, compared with Hassan’s 33.2 percent and Al Lemmo’s 16.4 percent. Smith held a lead of more than 10,600 votes, larger than the estimated number of ballots left to count, meaning Hassan cannot catch him if the remaining-vote estimate is accurate.” (08/05/26)
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-endorsed-michigan-candidate-lose-rival-12285591
- Tariffs Didn’t Rebuild Factories. They Fueled a Lobbying Boom.
Source: The Daily Economy
by Mitchel Bahnsen“According to a new report from Advancing American Freedom’s Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise, tariff lobbying revenues reached $9.9 million for the second quarter of 2026, a 690 percent increase over the same quarter in 2024 and a 956 percent increase over 2016 (pre-Trump) levels. The number of registered tariff lobbying disclosures has jumped 230 percent in just two years. At least 22 contracts listed ‘tariffs’ as their sole lobbying issue. The surge is not surprising. When the federal government arrogates to itself the power to decide who receives carve-outs and exceptions, it transforms a free and open market into a system of cronyism and influence currying.” (08/05/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/tariffs-didnt-rebuild-factories-they-fueled-a-lobbying-boom/
- America Reaps What Trump Sows: The Price of Policing the Globe
Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead“Blowback isn’t just about war. It’s about the consequences of the rash, heedless and heartless decisions made every day by the actors of the American police state—and the fact that it is ‘we the people’ who will be paying the price for those terrible decisions for years to come. President Trump’s war with Iran is only the latest reminder that no government can bomb, threaten and police the world indefinitely without eventually bringing the consequences home. For months, the Trump administration has lurched between war and threatened war, massive bombing campaigns and aborted strikes, demands for surrender and claims that peace is imminent. There appears to be no coherent plan for ending the conflict. There is, however, a mounting bill—and it will be paid in American lives, American dollars, American security and American freedom.” (08/05/26)
- Maintaining liberty your responsibility
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal“Every system people create takes effort to keep working. Someone must keep fixing the problems that otherwise pile up until the system fails. None are ‘set it and forget it.’ This is true for all systems of government: democracies, constitutional republics, monarchies, and communist dictatorships. It even applies in the absence of a system of government, as detractors of anarchy like to point out while they carefully ignore how the same applies to the system they prefer.” (08/05/26)
- When these licenses can’t cross state lines, consumers suffer
Source: Washington Post
by Jarrett Skorup“Anne Davis is a psychotherapist who spent two decades counseling homeless people and patients with mental illness in Colorado. But when she moved home to Michigan — which has a severe shortage of counselors, social workers and therapists — it took more than a year for the state to allow her to get back to work. The state desperately needs therapists like Davis. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, more than 3 million Michiganders live in a community that does not have enough mental health professionals. The state is facing a shortage of therapists and psychiatrists. But Michigan’s licensing laws have made it difficult to fill these gaps. The Wolverine State’s struggle to attract mental health professionals is a symptom of the broader problems caused by America’s patchwork of occupational licensing laws.” (08/05/26)
- Is Trump’s New Tariff Lever IEEPA 2.0?
Source: The Dispatch
by Ilya Somin“The administration’s latest import tax regime is similar to the illegal levies the Supreme Court struck down.” (08/05/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/trump-tariffs-section-301-forced-labor/
- Is Fauci’s Pardon Legit If His Pardon Was by AutoPen?
Source: Town Hall
by Kevin McCullough“Let’s play a fun little game of ‘what does ‘sign’ actually mean’, shall we? Because Dr. Anthony Fauci just spent a Senate hearing invoking the Fifth Amendment 111 times — one hundred and eleven, an Olympic gold medal in constitutional dodging — and buried underneath that spectacle is a question that’s far more interesting than anything Fauci actually said, which was, of course, nothing. Was his blanket pardon from Joe Biden even valid in the first place? And if it wasn’t, does the Fifth Amendment even apply to a man who might not be pardoned at all?” [editor’s note: Are McCullough’s paychecks signed by autopen? If so, is he going to return the money? – TLK] (08/05/26)
- Who Decides What Makes A “Good” School?
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Kerry McDonald“We all have distinct needs and preferences. Some of us like pickup trucks; others like Priuses. Some of us demand Dunkin’ coffee (me!); others swear by Starbucks. Some of us prefer to live in the city; others in the suburbs. Some of us like to read mystery novels; others prefer science fiction. Some of us want one type of Airbnb experience; others prefer something else. We are all different, and that diversity is what makes our society so dynamic. It’s also why decentralization is crucial. No top-down policy could possibly satisfy all of our individual needs and preferences, and imposing such a policy would understandably breed discontent. … In education, we are thankfully starting to see the choice, variety, and abundance we enjoy in all other parts of our lives where market competition prevails. ” (08/05/26)
https://fee.org/articles/who-decides-what-makes-a-good-school/
- Trade’s the way to guarantee food supplies
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Tim Worsall“Weather is local, weather that affects food production is local, therefore security of supply is gained by getting food from multiple local areas affected by different local weathers. Trade. We can go further too. Say that they’re right about this climate change thing. Weather is going to become more variable in each local area – this is indeed one of the predictions. That means that we must gain our food from many more local areas, local weathers, in order to have a consistent supply. The worse climate change is the more we not just desire but insist upon more trade in food. Climate change itself, that is, is the one single argument against local self-sufficiency in food.” (08/05/26)
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/trades-the-way-to-guarantee-food-supplies
- There Is Beauty Everywhere, Even In Dystopia or Armageddon
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“One point I will always adamantly insist on is that it’s entirely possible to live a joyful and exuberant life in the midst of this abusive dystopia. There’s a pervasive, unexamined notion throughout revolutionary politics that there’s some kind of nobility in being miserable. If it isn’t seen as noble, it’s at least seen as rational, because everything is so unjust and unhealthy. There’s a widespread assumption that your level of political awareness should have an inverse correlation to your level of personal happiness, because of all the tyranny, injustice, poverty, genocide and ecocide. That it would be selfish to be happy in a world so deeply troubled. But that’s rubbish. Nobody is helped by your misery. By depriving yourself of joy, you are only depriving the world of that much joy.” (08/05/26)
- The Cuban Communist Threat Redux
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“The communist threat from Cuba has returned with a vengeance. According to a Washington Post article entitled ‘State Dept. Again Deems Cuba a Threat Amid Talk of U.S. Push for Regime Change,’ the Trump administration recently issued an official report ‘alleging that a multi-decade Cuban influence campaign in the United States has had ‘remarkable success’ in infiltrating ‘the highest reaches of the U.S. government,’ backing ‘left-wing terrorism on American soil’ and turning ‘America against itself.’’ Yikes! The Reds are coming to get us … again! Is it time to send the troops back into Vietnam to prevent the dominoes from falling to the commies? Is the international communist conspiracy still centered in Moscow? What about the terrorists? And the Muslims? And the drug dealers? And the illegal immigrants? Should we put those on the back burner?” (08/05/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/08/05/the-cuban-communist-threat-redux/
- Africa plows a different growth path
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“Perhaps more so than in other parts of the world, Africa has been jolted by global trade shocks, epidemics, and climate uncertainties in recent years. At the same time, foreign aid has slowed to a trickle. Yet, amid all this, the continent’s one bright spot has been agriculture, which is evolving from subsistence farming into sustainable livelihoods. Investors from the Middle East, Asia, and Europe are putting money into African agriculture, seeding the ability of farmers there to intensify and diversify their crops and livestock with an eye toward processing raw materials for export. These investments signal a shift from resource exploitation by outside interests to an approach that recognizes African countries as reliable producers and trade partners.” (08/04/26)
- The Political Orphanage, 08/05/26
Source: The Political Orphanage
“Why Can’t We Have Nice Trains?” (08/05/26)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/why-cant-we-have-nice-trains
- Reason Interview: Evan Barker
Source: Reason
“How a Top Democratic Operative Lost Faith in Her Party.” (08/05/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/08/05/how-a-top-democratic-operative-lost-faith-in-her-party/
- Rising, 08/05/26
Source: The Hill
“Socialist Francesca Hong wants to cancel Thanksgiving?” (08/05/26)
- The Daily, 08/05/26
Source: New York Times
“Arizona’s Food Stamp Crisis Is Coming for the Rest of the U.S.” (08/05/26)